Thank you so much for your feedback! I know I'm a little late to respond and thank you for everything...I wanted to take the time to read through a bunch of the other log lines and your responses to them and really reconsider mine, as well.
I've thought a lot about the title, and to your point, making it longer so that it tells more about the book. For now I've landed on:
Atomic: A Gen X Memoir of Fractured Family and Altered States
The logline options could then be:
1. Hollywood Park meets Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
2. As a small child, Robin is abandoned to a verbally abusive stepmother and creates her own headspace to make the external world seem awesome while she waits for her daredevil dad to come home from Air Force nuke ALERT. This headspace works until it suddenly throws her in danger, and she must find other ways to cope and eventually connect to her dad.
3. As a young child abandoned in a peculiar divorce, Robin creates her own perception shift to make the world feel beautiful, setting off an exploration of altered states that eventually lands her right next to her dad and the connection with him she has
tried and failed to achieve until then. / craved all along.
I feel like the tricky part is I have to explain some of the headspace stuff (because it's not "normal") which then takes up a bunch of real estate. (Also I can't just say "after divorce" because it has to be quantified that I was the child, not some married person, so that also takes up space.) Do these options seem clearer to you? This is so hard! A lot of my book is actually quite funny and reads like a novel (according to other readers/writers), but I don't know how to write the log line in a funny way. (Or if I should.) Hmm. I think I might be like you where other people see better how to encapsulate it.
In any case I feel more comfortable with it and like it's moving forward in a good way.
Hi Courtney! I love this idea. I need major help because my romcom is fairly plot-heavy, and I'm not sure how to distill it into a logline that's not 60 words!
TITLE/GENRE: The 27 Club / Women's fiction/romcom
SUMMARY: Greta Hopper avoids everything that could possibly kill her: she doesn’t eat peanuts in case of an undiagnosed nut allergy; she’ll walk to her destination instead of subway for fear of a freak derailment. She knows it’s all in her head, even if the panic attacks show up everywhere else: her racing heart, her shaking hands. But when her family history and the onset of migraines give her real reason to worry, suddenly avoidance tactics and compartmentalizing aren’t enough. She needs health insurance for the exam that could potentially save her life…or prove that this is just another irrational fear.
Greta finds it at Schwartz’s, a struggling Jewish deli on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, which guarantees her health insurance if she can stick it out for 90 days, first. But when the cantankerous owner considers selling the deli before her probation is up, the exam–and her peace of mind–are once again in jeopardy. To save the deli, she teams up with Eli Galinski, the former frontman of a now-forgotten indie rock band, Schwartz’s bagel maker-in-chief, and Greta’s polar opposite.
They spend the summer rolling bagels, boosting profits, and falling madly, stupidly in love. But when Eli gets another shot at music relevance that means leaving the deli behind, Greta will be forced to question if, like her illness, their love is real, or all in her head.
LOGLINE: To overcome her existential dread, a woman must preserve the legacy of a crumbling Jewish deli alongside a musician working to rebuild his own.
XY: It's Everyone in this Room will Someday be Dead meets Book Lovers.
OR It's if Emily Henry wrote a Phoebe Bridgers album.
Hi Hayley- I'm writing quickly because I'm about to leave for vacation and don't want this to go unresponded to. I love the title and think the XY comps are stellar. You had me at the edge of the seat up until " But when her family history and the onset of migraines give her real reason to worry, suddenly avoidance tactics and compartmentalizing aren’t enough. She needs health insurance for the exam that could potentially save her life…or prove that this is just another irrational fear." Things go off the rails a bit from there on out. "Family history" giving her a reason to worry is oddly written because, in theory, her family history has been there all along-- was there a new piece of info she learned that triggered the headaches? Most projects benefit from having a quest so I think that structuring the short summary around her quest for insurance would help frame everything better-- and then you posit the Deli as the place that holds the key to what she needs. Again, sorry to run quickly but headed to the airport! Love the tone and scope of this-- good luck!
Thank you so much for getting back to me! Your comment makes total sense, and I'm grateful since this is something no one has pointed out to me before! Thank you!! Have a great trip :)
Amasa Sprague is the name of the wealthy mill owner who was murdered. I’m not married to the idea of calling the novel Amasa, it’s just such an unusual name that it sticks with me. As of right now, it’s a multi-narrator. Tone-wise I am aiming for something like the Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber. Ambitious, I know. I want it to be gritty, and even a bit snarky, but ultimately relatable. The main character is Nicholas Gordon, poor Irish immigrant, who spent eight years building a life here before sending for his mother and siblings to join him in Rhode Island. His younger brother John was arrested only six months after arriving and was ultimately hung for the murder. The story opens with Nicholas at the local Tavern, where he gets into a spat with the owner of the tavern. This thread of conflict will ultimately be the reason that his family is fingered for the crime. Other characters include his long-suffering mother, his young, beautiful sister, who has an affair with Amasa, and his younger brother John, who is essentially the Fredo of their family. There is a prostitute who is in love with Nicholas, and who Nicholas loves in return, but has turned his back on because she betrayed him a few years prior. There is also Amasa’s wife, who is an incredibly ambitious and overburdened woman who is wrestling with the challenge of getting her children excepted into gentrified society (the Sprague family are “new” money) She is having an affair with Amasa’s brother. The last important character (as I’m writing this I’m thinking maybe this is too many to keep track of) are the slaves that Amasa has inherited and who were legally emancipated the year before his murder, but stayed on because they had nowhere to go.
I’ve wrestled with all of these things, and have written most of this book over and over and over again to try out the different voices. I started by attempting to set it up as a compilation of testimonies, kind of like a documentary film, where each character has the opportunity to give their testimony from the perspective of hindsight while adding another brick to the building of the story, but then it seemed that all of those first person narrations would be too hard to keep track of. As of now I have an omniscient narrator who jumps from scene to scene, but who is telling the story from Nicholas Gordon‘s perspective.
Hi Courtney, love your substack and am in the process of reading your memoir, Year of the Horses which I also love ! I know I'm late to the party but didn't get to read this until now. Hope you can take a look- whatever you do, I'm grateful.
TITLE/ GENRE: The Healing Houses/ upmarket
Artist Elaine has been ten years a recluse after her destructive obsession with the leader of a cult when she was just seventeen. Making a living with her art is not just her dream but a financial necessity. Her goal is within reach when she gets a call from her ex-boyfriend, unearthing buried memories of their years in the cult, both troubling and poignant. Intrigued with the possibility of rekindling their love cut short, she lets her guard down and accepts an invitation to a concert where she comes face to face with the cult leader jeopardizing everything: the secret of her whereabouts, her budding life as an artist, and her mental health.
Needing to focus on her upcoming solo exhibit at a prestigious gallery, Elaine turns to the spiritual wisdom she learned in the beginning days of the cult. But when the leader’s powerful words appear in her artwork of simple, metaphorical houses, her darkest past surfaces, one her gallery owner wants to expose. Her ex-boyfriend becomes crucial in uncovering a long-ago mystery about the cult and its leader. As they turn up alarming details, it raises the question for Elaine: how much is she willing to uncover about the man she thought she’d once loved?
LOGLINE: When a reclusive artist is finally getting her life back together after a traumatic cult experience, she finds herself face to face with the cult’s charismatic leader and sets out to eliminate, with the help of her paintings, a ten-year-long obsession with him, uncovering more than she wishes to know in the process.
This sounds so intriguing! And very in line with the kind of writing Babs Borland does. Your description calls up a few questions for me: is the cult still active? It sounds like it is still active-- or did the cult come apart, bad press was everywhere, the leader was jailed...what happened in the 10 years since Elaine has left the cult? Was she notorious? At what level was her art career when she was in the cult? And how has she been supporting herself up until this point? I think you can shorten the description by leading with "Dire financial straits are forcing reclusive artist Elaine Lastname to come out of hiding ten years after she publicly separated with a notorious cult." The other thing I want to point out is that the ex and the cult leader are vying for our attention in your description-- it's a little unclear (for me, at least as a reader) who will get the spotlight, the ex or the cult leader. Thanks for sharing and thank you for reading my memoir!
Thank you , Courtney. Great suggestions. And yes, it's definitely more about the cult leader than the ex ( since it's dual timeline and half the novel is during the cult years-- I find it very difficult to do short queries with dual timeline, dual POV and get it all in!)
And I'm VERY excited about Barbara Bourland. Can't wait to read those books! Thanks again for your time and expertise.
Hi Courtney! I am a new subscriber, and I also loved (LOVED!) Before and After the Book Deal, which had me both rolling with laughter and soberly taking notes. I know I'm late to this game, so while I'd be super thankful for your thoughts on my logline, no pressure to do so. Thank you for being you.
TITLE/GENRE: Finding Petronella / Memoir
DESCRIPTION: When Jenny O’Connell met 89-year-old Sylvia Antoinette Petronella van der Moer on her deathbed in the spring of 2013, van der Moer began the conversation with four words: “I walked to Lapland.”
In 1949, the adventurous Dutch woman—known in Finland as “Petronella”—had followed her dream of being a writer to postwar Helsinki, where she interviewed prominent hotshots of Finnish society until she ran out of money, ditched her hotel bills, and fled north to Lapland to escape arrest. There, she hiked 116 kilometers into the Lemmenjoki gold fields, where she joined the gold rush and lived in wilderness with a reclusive, ragtag group of gold prospectors until the secret police discovered her three months later. She was arrested, put on trial, and deported—and then she mysteriously disappeared, leaving a legend growing in her wake. Over time, Petronella became a Lappish folk hero: the subject of multiple books and a musical; the name of a street, a restaurant, a song. Two hills in Lemmenjoki are named after her breasts. More than 70 years later, she continues to be a figure of great mystery and renown.
Captivated by those first words and the intrigue of Petronella’s legend, 26-year-old O’Connell—whose life had recently been upended by a near-death experience—quit her job as a naturalist and outdoor guide to follow Petronella’s footsteps across the Arctic Circle, embarking on a journey of self-discovery to interrogate the fears she’d inherited from society, face her own mortality, and prove—to herself, most of all—that she belonged in the wild places that brought her alive.
Big-hearted, whimsical, funny, and intensely-written, Finding Petronella provides sharp inquiry into what it is to be a woman making her way in the male-dominated world of outdoor adventure, reveals the trials and rewards of impulsive choices, and tells rich secrets about what it means to be alive and searching. O’Connell is guided on her quest by the modern-day Lemmenjoki gold prospectors—a lively and reclusive cast of characters who answer the call of the wilderness each year; and Arctic Lapland itself—a rare landscape, threatened by climate change, that is as harsh as it is stunning.
LOGLINE: Finding Petronella is a big-hearted memoir of a young woman who, inspired by a neighbor’s dying words, embarks on a journey across Finland’s Arctic Circle to interrogate inherited fear, carve out a place for herself as a woman in the wilderness, and chase that which brings her alive.
X meets Y: A page-turning travel epic that weaves adventure writing, memoir, and cultural journalism into a big-hearted account of self-discovery and transformation, Finding Petronella sits at the confluence of Robyn Davidson’s Tracks, Cheryl Strayed's Wild, and Blair Braverman’s Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube.
Glad to have you here, welcome! A few things: given that your book relies heavily on the character of Petronella in addition to yourself, you probably want to go with "Hybrid Memoir" to reflect that. I also suggest that you read through other people's descriptions-- the request was to get the summary into a paragraph, which would be a great exercise for you. And finally, the line I found super stirring and press-worthy (meaning you could build buzz and get publicity around this angle is: "provides sharp inquiry into what it is to be a woman making her way in the male-dominated world of outdoor adventure." The quest of a woman in the male-dominated world of outdoor adventure is timely and interesting especially with a good amount of outdoor adventurers sharing their successes and setbacks online. You can pitch profiles of people around that and really build upon that. And for the XY formula, frankly, you want to get cheesier, quicker-- it's something you should be able to pitch to someone in an elevator in 3 seconds or less and it should not sound "written." "It's the DEVIL WEARS PRADA but in the outdoor adventure world instead of fashion" "It's WILD if Strayed had attempted rock climbing" It's "MERU but with a female heroine"-- quick. punchy, and memorable lines like that!
Hi Courtney - I'm a new subscriber, happy to be here! Hopefully it's not too late to participate.
TITLE/GENRE: Toward the Light: A Year in Paris / Memoir
DESCRIPTION: TOWARD THE LIGHT: A YEAR IN PARIS tells the story of a recent college graduate who boards a plane for a year-long adventure in Paris, hoping to improve her French while nannying. Two months after her arrival a stranger sexually assaults her after a run in a park. Isolated and alone in a foreign country in the early 1990s--before cell phones and email--but unwilling to let rape deter her, she chooses to stay in France and begin again, seeking healing and transforming herself in the process. The book takes place over the course of one year in Paris, and focuses on an essential, often-overlooked question, “How does healing begin?” The initial journey inward is often neglected in a quest for justice or a desire to push past the trauma as quickly as possible; yet, it is the essential foundation for true healing. The book has a spiritual component to it, as the narrator grapples with profound questions of faith. The narrator offers insight and perspective on her experience of trauma and the beginnings of recovery with a depth of understanding that her twentysomething self did not and could not have had.
LOGLINE: A recent college graduate sets off on a year-long adventure in Paris, nannying for a French family. Two months after her arrival, she is plunged into darkness when a stranger sexually assaults her. Isolated and alone in a foreign country in the early 1990s, she chooses to stay in France and begin again, seeking healing and transforming herself in the process.
Thank you for upgrading, and for sharing your work here. I think these descriptions are beautiful and the story is brave and also sounds inspiring-- a difficult feat after such a traumatic event. I have two suggestions-- I think you should widen the question you're asking from "How does healing begin" to "How does healing begin when you're away from all you know?" Or something of that ilk. The idea of healing away from one's own friends, one's family and in a language that isn't native to you is so interesting, and quite unique. I think that question should come up in the logline, too. And for the title, can you push so that the journey of healing is hinted somewhere? There is something there with "light"/ "city of lights", and maybe "recovering in Paris" in the subline or something like that? Or you can put something before "toward" like "Climbing toward the light" to indicate struggle....thanks for sharing your work, Deborah.
Hi Courtney & everyone diving in. Here is mine, if it is not too late to participate.
TITLE/GENRE: My Bread Panics/Narrative nonfiction
DESCRIPTION: Doubts about bread seem modern but as the staple food of American life, bread has been the steady object of social concern. Loaf by loaf, crumb by crumb, bread carries nutrition and status, and the lack of these virtues, too. Nineteenth century reformers focused on homemade whole wheat bread as a key to dietary and spiritual health, and as bread industrialized, the emerging industry saw women who baked at home as their prime competition. Who should make our daily bread, and what it should contain is a constant question, one that the sourdough and bread baking craze of the early pandemic brought into kitchens and minds. I invite readers to explore their lingering questions as I interrogate this emblem of love and community care. I quiz bread from flour to bakery, addressing concerns about its nutritional soundness, and the emotions and labor conditions wrapped up in its production.
LOGLINE: Written with the urgency and intimacy of Lisa Donovan's "Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger", this coming of age in food is a cross between the revelations of Tracie McMillan's "The American Way of Eating" and the cultural explorations of Aaron Bobrow-Strain’s "White Bread."
I love this! As someone married to a French person-- garbage American bread and all the bad things stuffed inside it is a constant topic. I feel like Michael Pollan's deep probes into single subjects would be a good comp here. Do you have a proposal for this book? It seems like a project that could perform well on proposal. And finally, the only thing you need to incorporate into your pitch material here is why you are the person to write this. What's your expertise around bread? What makes you the perfect ambassador for this project? Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the vote of confidence Courtney! I do have a full proposal & first chapter, and have sent it to a handful of agents. I actually am a Flour Ambassador, a title I created for myself when my first book, about the revival of regional grain production, was published. I made up a goofy pledge and badge and everything. I really appreciate you creating a forum for figuring out publishing life. As someone who skipped an MFA, this kind of feedback and community is wonderful to have!
I need the community myself! No MFA here, either. Definitely get the Flour Ambassador title and first book into the pitch-- I'm sure it's in the query, but if you pitch outloud to people, you'll want to mention that!
Oh thank you so much. What a boost to my confidence, and I can't wait to read your next novel. I'm crossing fingers one lovely agent agrees with your assessment of this story!
DESCRIPTION: Glenda Glenn never planned to become a vigilante gardener. But when a neighbor’s construction threatens her homegrown nature preserve, she’s forced into action. Like a shadowy Johnny Appleseed, she smuggles native plants across property lines, sabotages exotics, reroutes rainwater, and takes charge of the local wildlife. But conflict is in the forecast.
LOGLINE: Set in a tony east coast suburb, Invasive Species is a comic novel about a woman so troubled by a changing world that she sneaks into neighbors’ yards to climate-proof them, guerilla-style.
As you know because I wrote you earlier, I LOVE THIS. Love the title, love the premise, love the setting. It's similar in aim to the novel I'm working on now. I wish you all the best with this, I wouldn't change a thing!
TITLE: The In-Between Times: Twenty Weird and Wonderful Experiments to Break-Up with Do-It-All-ism & Fully Embrace the Lovely Life Hidden in the Cracks of Your Days
(yes this title is probably too long... haha!)
Project description:
Each chapter in the book is a description of 20 experiments I've done during the in-between times of my life (driving down the highway, at the grocery store, waiting for a staff meeting to get started, etc.) in an attempt to unhook from perfectionist, toxic-productivity mindsets, and uncover more delight, awe, love, ease and yesss! (my D.A.L.E.Y. 5) in the in-between times of my life.
Logline:
This is a book for moms of school-aged kids (or just women?) who are ready to unhook from all-or-nothing, toxic-productivity mindsets through a series of playful experiments that uncover the delight, awe, love, ease and yesss! available to all of us in the in-between times of life.
I love calls *against* productivity, especially these days. I actually like your title quite a lot! Though I think you can replace everything that comes after "embrace" and make it shorter, "Fully Embrace Giving a Little, Doing Less" "Fully Embrace Chaos" or something along those lines. And I like the structure of 20 exercises and the language of "in-between times." Sounds like a great project!
TITLE/GENRE: THE RELUCTANT WINE DETECTIVE (Mystery / Thriller)
DESCRIPTION: Eugenia Clairvin, an unassuming wine phenom, with a perfect olfactory memory, doesn't recognize her unique talent. She's overwhelmed by her mother's suicide, her father's illness, and the loss of the family vineyard. But things are looking up, fate has taken an unexpected turn and brought her a whirlwind romance and a new fiancé who is a wine researcher in France. When he vanishes and she suddenly receives a cryptic letter bearing an enigmatic scent from him, she goes to France, and with her fiancé's sister, discovers he disappeared with a rare wine that will change humanity forever. To unravel his fate and decipher the truth behind a deadly web of deceit, she must first recognize the truth about herself.
LOGLINE: An unassuming wine phenom with a perfect olfactory memory, searching for her missing fiancé, uncovers a miracle wine, a web of deadly deceit, and the truth about herself.
X MEETS Y: The Queen's Gambit and Lessons in Chemistry meet Dan Brown in the world of wine.
The XY formula is phenomenal and the logline is super solid! For the description, I get a little lost in how someone who is a wine "phenom" and whose family had a vineyard didn't have her talent recognized, or nourished? The description has a lot going on (normal, it's a novel!) but I must admit, there is so much going on, I'm not sure where the spotlight is in the paragraph. What's the most important thing, what is Eugenia's quest? To finally admit her talent? To find her fiancé? To save the family vineyard? To mourn her mother's death? To escape the mental illness that plagued her mother? With the volume turned up regarding what "the truth" is that she must recognize about herself, I think you'll have a stellar pitch!
Courtney, your analysis is spot on! Reading all your comments, I realize that I should be very clear about the 'truth about herself' (mental illness in her family) and the truth about her fiancé's disappearance (he faked a miracle wine, disappearing to make it credible, and ransoming it... never thinking Eugenia would uncover the truth and stop him). Really enjoying and benefiting from your substack and you sharing your experience and expertise. Thanks!
Hi Courtney - I hope it's not too late to participate, I see you're responding to folks now! I just subscribed because I've been avoiding this challenge - thanks for prompting me to do it, and thanks in advance for your feedback!
Title: INDELICATE
Genre: Literary fiction
Description: The Junction Hotel is already on shaky ground when it’s overcome with a heat wave so powerful it threatens business and causes monstrous scorpions to infest its prized pool. Pablo, the pool attendant, is tasked with removing them, but he’s a nature-loving vegan opposed to violence of any sort. When Pablo accidentally offends an influential guest, the fate of the hotel is put at stake. Meanwhile, a journalist is arriving any minute to interview one of the hotel’s residents, a reclusive artist grappling with his first taste of fame during a creative dry spell, and put the hotel under even more scrutiny. After the hotel owner is injured and an unexpected, unwelcome guest arrives, the residents must band together under the leadership of the long-time hotel housekeeper to save the hotel.
Logline: The residents of a West Texas hotel are shaken by an unprecedented heat wave and an unexpected visitor.
XY formula: Grand Budapest Hotel, but in West Texas.
I love this! The XY formula is grand. For the description, make sure you specific that this is in West Texas-- you say that in the logline but not the description. I'd mention what Pablo does to offend the influential guest. Otherwise I think this is marvelous-- I love me a behind the scenes PR crisis! You might want to give a think to whether there's not a more descriptive title you can query with-- something that specifically speaks to the hospitality industry or west Texas or -- better still-- both! Thanks for upgrading to join us here!
TITLE/GENRE: GROWING UP EVANGELICAL, CHINESE, AND DEPRESSED (memoir)
DESCRIPTION: The memoir tells the story of Jane, the daughter of Chinese immigrant and evangelical—almost fundamentalist—Christian parents, growing up in the 1980s and 90s in Orange County, California. She struggles with her father’s bipolar disorder as well as her own developing depression and anxiety. As Jane moves through romantic/sexual relationships, earning her PhD in English, and becoming a professor, she risks losing family and religion as she fights for her own independent identity and path.
LOGLINE: A Chinese American woman raised evangelical Christian wrestles with growing up with an immigrant father with bipolar disorder in order to pursue her own healing from depression and anxiety.
X MEETS Y: Educated meets The Collected Schizophrenias
Your XY formula is perfect. One thing for both the description and logline-- memoir is quite hard to get agents and editors for at this current moment, so you want to make it hyper clear that you have a plot. Is there some tweaking you can do to show a quest that's almost tangible beyond healing and finding peace and independence? Something with dire stakes-- for example, the narrator is gunning for a tenure track position but past trauma is coming back to haunt her and she's flubbing some of her interviews and/or is unable to publish (because: publish or perish.) I'm absolutely not trying to write your book for you or to suggest a false direction, but in your descriptive materials, you'll want to prove that you have a page turner to get past the red ropes in a difficult market.
thanks for your response! One thing I find helpful is to look at the descriptive materials of your comp titles. What's the plot there? What made you buy the book? what made you turn the pages?
Courtney, thank you. Yes, I do find it helpful to look at book descriptions on Amazon. It is interesting for me to think about books like The Collected Schizophrenias or Minor Feelings that maybe don't have a conventional plot or narrative arc? Wondering if this is a difference between a memoir vs. a nonfiction collection of essays? Anyways, your feedback made me rewrite the description below trying to bring out the plot more.
DESCRIPTION: At age 32, Jane is admitted to the psychiatric unit of a hospital after her severe depression makes her unable to teach her college class and work on her dissertation toward earning her PhD in American literature. As she leaves the psychiatric unit and spends two months in an intensive-outpatient therapy program, she learns from the other clients in the program and wrestles with the shame and stigma of growing up with a father who was hospitalized multiple times for bipolar disorder. She deals with two psychiatrists having opposing medication prescriptions for her mental illness, different prescriptions that can make the difference between her being a functional professor and spouse or having problems with daily functioning. Getting stabilized on her medications, albeit with bumps in the road, she earns tenure and prepares to have a baby at 40, given the long road to her academic career. While dealing with the challenges of being a mother with a mental health condition, she starts writing her memoir during a sabbatical shortly after receiving tenure. In writing her memoir, she gives expression and structure to past traumas.
This is much more evocative and suggests plot. When pitching to agents, I (personally, you don't have to take this advice!) would use " the search/need for tenure" as the quest-- that's the thing the reader could root for, the narrator getting tenure.
Maybe this for a revised logline? Not sure if it's too long though.
LOGLINE: A 32-year-old PhD student in American literature is hospitalized for severe depression that makes her unable to teach classes and work on her writing. Through her hospitalization and time in an intensive-outpatient program, she listens to other clients’ stories that help her cope with her own, including growing up with a father with bipolar disorder. Shortly after receiving tenure, while trying to balance motherhood and mental health, she begins working on a memoir that helps her express and give structure to past traumas.
A logline should be one sentence-- you should be able to say it out loud in like 3 seconds. That's why it's often referred to as an "elevator pitch"-- because you should be able to pitch it to someone in an elevator. You'll get there-- the description is a vast improvement! And yes-- descriptions for essay collections won't follow the same formula as a book length memoir. Thanks for sharing your revisions!
TITLE/GENRE: MR. SCHEHERAZADE — romantic comedy (screenplay)
DESCRIPTION: Paul Falconer, a middle-aged novelist, has lost touch with his readership and the world around him. He misses the old publishing world, the old Manhattan, the old literary lions. When Paul learns that his long-time publisher might cancel his book deal, he feels almost relieved. But when Paul discovers that Mary, his editor and first reader — also, his ex-wife — is romantically serious with a mysterious someone, the author wants to win her back. And how better than to write something new? He will show Mary that he can still enchant her. But, as Paul gets underway, a minor character takes narrative control. Struggling to write his novel, Paul wonders who is creating whom?
LOGLINE: An out-of-touch novelist tries to win back his ex-wife with a new book, but a minor character has other ideas.
TAGLINE: Beneath every Pygmalion lies a Frankenstein.
X MEETS Y: “My Fair Lady” meets “Frankenstein” with “His Girl Friday” as the framing device. Or, because there will be a lot of tug-of-war with POV - “If Christopher Nolan and Nora Ephron had a love child, it might be this romantic comedy.”
This sounds juicy and exciting! A few questions: what kind of books did this man write that won him fame and renown? Is it his style of writing that has fallen out of fashion or is it him? And why is his publisher going to cancel his book deal-- poor pre orders maybe? Or does he do something to get himself cancelled? And finally, if his wife is far enough in the past to be an ex wife, it seems like a big leap that her dating someone new causes him to want her back. In theory (I'm just guessing) that separation has been in place for quite a while which would make feelings of jealousy less fresh. Maybe the mysterious someone is a rival writer? I love the idea of a minor character taking over-- so fun, plus it will allow you to build plot into a book that could otherwise suffer from interiority (because your main character is a writer, and writers have sedentary jobs ;) Keep it up-- it sounds great!
Thank you, Courtney! Don’t know if this has a bearing on your feedback, but this is a screenplay, not a novel. Book scenes are visualized, and I would like to play with perspective — are we in or out of the book — if only a few times, to reinforce the experience of reframing our perspective. Author wrote a series of detective novels that are falling out of fashion and he gets himself cancelled at a book convention. His ex-wife’s lover is his longtime publisher and best friend (so far). I am playing with the idea that at the end of the story, his ex-wife is actually writing a novel and he is a character within it. I know you don’t like secrets withheld, but I felt like this additional twist bogs down the description and logline? I truly appreciate your time.
I didn't miss that it was a screenplay, but even in the pitch documents for screenplays, motivations are fleshed out (or should be! as you rightly stated I'm big on giving details instead of withholding them.) I think that the theme of cancellation is so timely, it should be in the description, ditto for the type of novels he writes falling out of fashion. It gives him more humanity and roundness and helps understand his world, and thus, the book's.
Thank you, Courtney! Here is a more fleshed-out logline —
A disgraced crime writer wants to win back his readers, his reputation and most importantly, his ex-wife, whom he has never stopped loving, by writing something that proves he is more than the entitled jerk who got himself cancelled, but as his new book gets underway, a minor character loses her patience and takes over the narrative, while the recurring protagonist in the writer’s crime series, an old-school detective, is ready for a regime change as well.
This is much cleaner-- brava! I'd insert what he was cancelled for so we have a better idea, as readers, of how much of an uphill battle this is going to be. Otherwise this is a fantastic revision!
[Title/Genre] A LEAVE OF ABSENCE (Book Club/Upmarket Fiction)
[Description] Set in the glory days of 2013 Silicon Valley, A LEAVE OF ABSENCE follows an ambitious millennial woman named Maggie, a rising-star journalist. After her ultra-successful father jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge, Maggie and her mother are unexpectedly left penniless. She joins a promising early-stage startup in San Francisco, hoping for a quick path back to riches, and falls for its charismatic founder, spiraling her life into a wildly unexpected direction that forces her to reckon with both her sanity and the world she's always felt she was destined to inhabit.
[Logline] It’s like Fleishman is in Trouble if Rachel Fleishman had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and worked at a hot startup in 2013 Silicon Valley
[XYZ]: Fleishman is Trouble meets Uncanny Valley meets Sorrow and Bliss (although, note; the novel also deals with postpartum psychosis, so I’m not sure whether a novel of that ilk—like The Upstairs House or Nightbitch would be better here?)
This is super interesting-- I do think whenever "Silicon Valley" is mentioned it kind of takes all the oxygen from the proverbial room. It seems like to you, at least in the logline, that the main characters mental health struggles are the most important thing, but those troubles aren't actually mentioned in the description. A question I have is if the father was super successful, why were they left penniless? Did he have some kind of secret life, or just secrets? Is joining the start up against the values she was raised with? I think there is some work to be done to illustrate the life that Maggie was excited about having versus the life she has to "settle for" or adopt in order to...to what? Stay living where she lives? Support herself financially? Why is it so essential that she keep living at the level she was living at? I mean, I get it logistically, but for her, why is it important?
Hi Courtney!
Thank you so much for your feedback! I know I'm a little late to respond and thank you for everything...I wanted to take the time to read through a bunch of the other log lines and your responses to them and really reconsider mine, as well.
I've thought a lot about the title, and to your point, making it longer so that it tells more about the book. For now I've landed on:
Atomic: A Gen X Memoir of Fractured Family and Altered States
The logline options could then be:
1. Hollywood Park meets Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls
2. As a small child, Robin is abandoned to a verbally abusive stepmother and creates her own headspace to make the external world seem awesome while she waits for her daredevil dad to come home from Air Force nuke ALERT. This headspace works until it suddenly throws her in danger, and she must find other ways to cope and eventually connect to her dad.
3. As a young child abandoned in a peculiar divorce, Robin creates her own perception shift to make the world feel beautiful, setting off an exploration of altered states that eventually lands her right next to her dad and the connection with him she has
tried and failed to achieve until then. / craved all along.
I feel like the tricky part is I have to explain some of the headspace stuff (because it's not "normal") which then takes up a bunch of real estate. (Also I can't just say "after divorce" because it has to be quantified that I was the child, not some married person, so that also takes up space.) Do these options seem clearer to you? This is so hard! A lot of my book is actually quite funny and reads like a novel (according to other readers/writers), but I don't know how to write the log line in a funny way. (Or if I should.) Hmm. I think I might be like you where other people see better how to encapsulate it.
In any case I feel more comfortable with it and like it's moving forward in a good way.
Thanks a million!!
Robin
Hi Courtney! I love this idea. I need major help because my romcom is fairly plot-heavy, and I'm not sure how to distill it into a logline that's not 60 words!
TITLE/GENRE: The 27 Club / Women's fiction/romcom
SUMMARY: Greta Hopper avoids everything that could possibly kill her: she doesn’t eat peanuts in case of an undiagnosed nut allergy; she’ll walk to her destination instead of subway for fear of a freak derailment. She knows it’s all in her head, even if the panic attacks show up everywhere else: her racing heart, her shaking hands. But when her family history and the onset of migraines give her real reason to worry, suddenly avoidance tactics and compartmentalizing aren’t enough. She needs health insurance for the exam that could potentially save her life…or prove that this is just another irrational fear.
Greta finds it at Schwartz’s, a struggling Jewish deli on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, which guarantees her health insurance if she can stick it out for 90 days, first. But when the cantankerous owner considers selling the deli before her probation is up, the exam–and her peace of mind–are once again in jeopardy. To save the deli, she teams up with Eli Galinski, the former frontman of a now-forgotten indie rock band, Schwartz’s bagel maker-in-chief, and Greta’s polar opposite.
They spend the summer rolling bagels, boosting profits, and falling madly, stupidly in love. But when Eli gets another shot at music relevance that means leaving the deli behind, Greta will be forced to question if, like her illness, their love is real, or all in her head.
LOGLINE: To overcome her existential dread, a woman must preserve the legacy of a crumbling Jewish deli alongside a musician working to rebuild his own.
XY: It's Everyone in this Room will Someday be Dead meets Book Lovers.
OR It's if Emily Henry wrote a Phoebe Bridgers album.
:)
Hi Hayley- I'm writing quickly because I'm about to leave for vacation and don't want this to go unresponded to. I love the title and think the XY comps are stellar. You had me at the edge of the seat up until " But when her family history and the onset of migraines give her real reason to worry, suddenly avoidance tactics and compartmentalizing aren’t enough. She needs health insurance for the exam that could potentially save her life…or prove that this is just another irrational fear." Things go off the rails a bit from there on out. "Family history" giving her a reason to worry is oddly written because, in theory, her family history has been there all along-- was there a new piece of info she learned that triggered the headaches? Most projects benefit from having a quest so I think that structuring the short summary around her quest for insurance would help frame everything better-- and then you posit the Deli as the place that holds the key to what she needs. Again, sorry to run quickly but headed to the airport! Love the tone and scope of this-- good luck!
Courtney,
Thank you so much for getting back to me! Your comment makes total sense, and I'm grateful since this is something no one has pointed out to me before! Thank you!! Have a great trip :)
So sorry for the delay! Thanks for writing back!
Amasa Sprague is the name of the wealthy mill owner who was murdered. I’m not married to the idea of calling the novel Amasa, it’s just such an unusual name that it sticks with me. As of right now, it’s a multi-narrator. Tone-wise I am aiming for something like the Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber. Ambitious, I know. I want it to be gritty, and even a bit snarky, but ultimately relatable. The main character is Nicholas Gordon, poor Irish immigrant, who spent eight years building a life here before sending for his mother and siblings to join him in Rhode Island. His younger brother John was arrested only six months after arriving and was ultimately hung for the murder. The story opens with Nicholas at the local Tavern, where he gets into a spat with the owner of the tavern. This thread of conflict will ultimately be the reason that his family is fingered for the crime. Other characters include his long-suffering mother, his young, beautiful sister, who has an affair with Amasa, and his younger brother John, who is essentially the Fredo of their family. There is a prostitute who is in love with Nicholas, and who Nicholas loves in return, but has turned his back on because she betrayed him a few years prior. There is also Amasa’s wife, who is an incredibly ambitious and overburdened woman who is wrestling with the challenge of getting her children excepted into gentrified society (the Sprague family are “new” money) She is having an affair with Amasa’s brother. The last important character (as I’m writing this I’m thinking maybe this is too many to keep track of) are the slaves that Amasa has inherited and who were legally emancipated the year before his murder, but stayed on because they had nowhere to go.
I’ve wrestled with all of these things, and have written most of this book over and over and over again to try out the different voices. I started by attempting to set it up as a compilation of testimonies, kind of like a documentary film, where each character has the opportunity to give their testimony from the perspective of hindsight while adding another brick to the building of the story, but then it seemed that all of those first person narrations would be too hard to keep track of. As of now I have an omniscient narrator who jumps from scene to scene, but who is telling the story from Nicholas Gordon‘s perspective.
Thanks so much, you’re amazing!
Thanks for all of the above-- sounds like a fascinating and deeply ambitious book. Good luck!
Think I’m nuts? Also, do you know an editor I could hire?
I do not think you are nuts. Send an email to thequerydoula (at) gmail (dot) com and my out of office will give you a solid list of editors!
Hi Courtney, love your substack and am in the process of reading your memoir, Year of the Horses which I also love ! I know I'm late to the party but didn't get to read this until now. Hope you can take a look- whatever you do, I'm grateful.
TITLE/ GENRE: The Healing Houses/ upmarket
Artist Elaine has been ten years a recluse after her destructive obsession with the leader of a cult when she was just seventeen. Making a living with her art is not just her dream but a financial necessity. Her goal is within reach when she gets a call from her ex-boyfriend, unearthing buried memories of their years in the cult, both troubling and poignant. Intrigued with the possibility of rekindling their love cut short, she lets her guard down and accepts an invitation to a concert where she comes face to face with the cult leader jeopardizing everything: the secret of her whereabouts, her budding life as an artist, and her mental health.
Needing to focus on her upcoming solo exhibit at a prestigious gallery, Elaine turns to the spiritual wisdom she learned in the beginning days of the cult. But when the leader’s powerful words appear in her artwork of simple, metaphorical houses, her darkest past surfaces, one her gallery owner wants to expose. Her ex-boyfriend becomes crucial in uncovering a long-ago mystery about the cult and its leader. As they turn up alarming details, it raises the question for Elaine: how much is she willing to uncover about the man she thought she’d once loved?
LOGLINE: When a reclusive artist is finally getting her life back together after a traumatic cult experience, she finds herself face to face with the cult’s charismatic leader and sets out to eliminate, with the help of her paintings, a ten-year-long obsession with him, uncovering more than she wishes to know in the process.
This sounds so intriguing! And very in line with the kind of writing Babs Borland does. Your description calls up a few questions for me: is the cult still active? It sounds like it is still active-- or did the cult come apart, bad press was everywhere, the leader was jailed...what happened in the 10 years since Elaine has left the cult? Was she notorious? At what level was her art career when she was in the cult? And how has she been supporting herself up until this point? I think you can shorten the description by leading with "Dire financial straits are forcing reclusive artist Elaine Lastname to come out of hiding ten years after she publicly separated with a notorious cult." The other thing I want to point out is that the ex and the cult leader are vying for our attention in your description-- it's a little unclear (for me, at least as a reader) who will get the spotlight, the ex or the cult leader. Thanks for sharing and thank you for reading my memoir!
Thank you , Courtney. Great suggestions. And yes, it's definitely more about the cult leader than the ex ( since it's dual timeline and half the novel is during the cult years-- I find it very difficult to do short queries with dual timeline, dual POV and get it all in!)
And I'm VERY excited about Barbara Bourland. Can't wait to read those books! Thanks again for your time and expertise.
Hi Courtney! I am a new subscriber, and I also loved (LOVED!) Before and After the Book Deal, which had me both rolling with laughter and soberly taking notes. I know I'm late to this game, so while I'd be super thankful for your thoughts on my logline, no pressure to do so. Thank you for being you.
TITLE/GENRE: Finding Petronella / Memoir
DESCRIPTION: When Jenny O’Connell met 89-year-old Sylvia Antoinette Petronella van der Moer on her deathbed in the spring of 2013, van der Moer began the conversation with four words: “I walked to Lapland.”
In 1949, the adventurous Dutch woman—known in Finland as “Petronella”—had followed her dream of being a writer to postwar Helsinki, where she interviewed prominent hotshots of Finnish society until she ran out of money, ditched her hotel bills, and fled north to Lapland to escape arrest. There, she hiked 116 kilometers into the Lemmenjoki gold fields, where she joined the gold rush and lived in wilderness with a reclusive, ragtag group of gold prospectors until the secret police discovered her three months later. She was arrested, put on trial, and deported—and then she mysteriously disappeared, leaving a legend growing in her wake. Over time, Petronella became a Lappish folk hero: the subject of multiple books and a musical; the name of a street, a restaurant, a song. Two hills in Lemmenjoki are named after her breasts. More than 70 years later, she continues to be a figure of great mystery and renown.
Captivated by those first words and the intrigue of Petronella’s legend, 26-year-old O’Connell—whose life had recently been upended by a near-death experience—quit her job as a naturalist and outdoor guide to follow Petronella’s footsteps across the Arctic Circle, embarking on a journey of self-discovery to interrogate the fears she’d inherited from society, face her own mortality, and prove—to herself, most of all—that she belonged in the wild places that brought her alive.
Big-hearted, whimsical, funny, and intensely-written, Finding Petronella provides sharp inquiry into what it is to be a woman making her way in the male-dominated world of outdoor adventure, reveals the trials and rewards of impulsive choices, and tells rich secrets about what it means to be alive and searching. O’Connell is guided on her quest by the modern-day Lemmenjoki gold prospectors—a lively and reclusive cast of characters who answer the call of the wilderness each year; and Arctic Lapland itself—a rare landscape, threatened by climate change, that is as harsh as it is stunning.
LOGLINE: Finding Petronella is a big-hearted memoir of a young woman who, inspired by a neighbor’s dying words, embarks on a journey across Finland’s Arctic Circle to interrogate inherited fear, carve out a place for herself as a woman in the wilderness, and chase that which brings her alive.
X meets Y: A page-turning travel epic that weaves adventure writing, memoir, and cultural journalism into a big-hearted account of self-discovery and transformation, Finding Petronella sits at the confluence of Robyn Davidson’s Tracks, Cheryl Strayed's Wild, and Blair Braverman’s Welcome to the Goddamn Ice Cube.
Glad to have you here, welcome! A few things: given that your book relies heavily on the character of Petronella in addition to yourself, you probably want to go with "Hybrid Memoir" to reflect that. I also suggest that you read through other people's descriptions-- the request was to get the summary into a paragraph, which would be a great exercise for you. And finally, the line I found super stirring and press-worthy (meaning you could build buzz and get publicity around this angle is: "provides sharp inquiry into what it is to be a woman making her way in the male-dominated world of outdoor adventure." The quest of a woman in the male-dominated world of outdoor adventure is timely and interesting especially with a good amount of outdoor adventurers sharing their successes and setbacks online. You can pitch profiles of people around that and really build upon that. And for the XY formula, frankly, you want to get cheesier, quicker-- it's something you should be able to pitch to someone in an elevator in 3 seconds or less and it should not sound "written." "It's the DEVIL WEARS PRADA but in the outdoor adventure world instead of fashion" "It's WILD if Strayed had attempted rock climbing" It's "MERU but with a female heroine"-- quick. punchy, and memorable lines like that!
Thank you so much, Courtney! This is so helpful and generous.
Hi Courtney - I'm a new subscriber, happy to be here! Hopefully it's not too late to participate.
TITLE/GENRE: Toward the Light: A Year in Paris / Memoir
DESCRIPTION: TOWARD THE LIGHT: A YEAR IN PARIS tells the story of a recent college graduate who boards a plane for a year-long adventure in Paris, hoping to improve her French while nannying. Two months after her arrival a stranger sexually assaults her after a run in a park. Isolated and alone in a foreign country in the early 1990s--before cell phones and email--but unwilling to let rape deter her, she chooses to stay in France and begin again, seeking healing and transforming herself in the process. The book takes place over the course of one year in Paris, and focuses on an essential, often-overlooked question, “How does healing begin?” The initial journey inward is often neglected in a quest for justice or a desire to push past the trauma as quickly as possible; yet, it is the essential foundation for true healing. The book has a spiritual component to it, as the narrator grapples with profound questions of faith. The narrator offers insight and perspective on her experience of trauma and the beginnings of recovery with a depth of understanding that her twentysomething self did not and could not have had.
LOGLINE: A recent college graduate sets off on a year-long adventure in Paris, nannying for a French family. Two months after her arrival, she is plunged into darkness when a stranger sexually assaults her. Isolated and alone in a foreign country in the early 1990s, she chooses to stay in France and begin again, seeking healing and transforming herself in the process.
Thank you for upgrading, and for sharing your work here. I think these descriptions are beautiful and the story is brave and also sounds inspiring-- a difficult feat after such a traumatic event. I have two suggestions-- I think you should widen the question you're asking from "How does healing begin" to "How does healing begin when you're away from all you know?" Or something of that ilk. The idea of healing away from one's own friends, one's family and in a language that isn't native to you is so interesting, and quite unique. I think that question should come up in the logline, too. And for the title, can you push so that the journey of healing is hinted somewhere? There is something there with "light"/ "city of lights", and maybe "recovering in Paris" in the subline or something like that? Or you can put something before "toward" like "Climbing toward the light" to indicate struggle....thanks for sharing your work, Deborah.
Thanks so much for your feedback, Courtney. Very helpful!
Hi Courtney & everyone diving in. Here is mine, if it is not too late to participate.
TITLE/GENRE: My Bread Panics/Narrative nonfiction
DESCRIPTION: Doubts about bread seem modern but as the staple food of American life, bread has been the steady object of social concern. Loaf by loaf, crumb by crumb, bread carries nutrition and status, and the lack of these virtues, too. Nineteenth century reformers focused on homemade whole wheat bread as a key to dietary and spiritual health, and as bread industrialized, the emerging industry saw women who baked at home as their prime competition. Who should make our daily bread, and what it should contain is a constant question, one that the sourdough and bread baking craze of the early pandemic brought into kitchens and minds. I invite readers to explore their lingering questions as I interrogate this emblem of love and community care. I quiz bread from flour to bakery, addressing concerns about its nutritional soundness, and the emotions and labor conditions wrapped up in its production.
LOGLINE: Written with the urgency and intimacy of Lisa Donovan's "Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger", this coming of age in food is a cross between the revelations of Tracie McMillan's "The American Way of Eating" and the cultural explorations of Aaron Bobrow-Strain’s "White Bread."
I love this! As someone married to a French person-- garbage American bread and all the bad things stuffed inside it is a constant topic. I feel like Michael Pollan's deep probes into single subjects would be a good comp here. Do you have a proposal for this book? It seems like a project that could perform well on proposal. And finally, the only thing you need to incorporate into your pitch material here is why you are the person to write this. What's your expertise around bread? What makes you the perfect ambassador for this project? Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the vote of confidence Courtney! I do have a full proposal & first chapter, and have sent it to a handful of agents. I actually am a Flour Ambassador, a title I created for myself when my first book, about the revival of regional grain production, was published. I made up a goofy pledge and badge and everything. I really appreciate you creating a forum for figuring out publishing life. As someone who skipped an MFA, this kind of feedback and community is wonderful to have!
I need the community myself! No MFA here, either. Definitely get the Flour Ambassador title and first book into the pitch-- I'm sure it's in the query, but if you pitch outloud to people, you'll want to mention that!
Thank you! Will do.
Oh thank you so much. What a boost to my confidence, and I can't wait to read your next novel. I'm crossing fingers one lovely agent agrees with your assessment of this story!
Reading these was so helpful. Thank you, Courtney, and thank you to everyone who took a leap of faith here!
Hi Courtney. I've enjoyed reading everyone's fantastic work, as well as your feedback. Thanks for creating this creative community. Here's my logline.
TITLE/GENRE: Invasive Species/ Literary-Upmarket Comedy
DESCRIPTION: Glenda Glenn never planned to become a vigilante gardener. But when a neighbor’s construction threatens her homegrown nature preserve, she’s forced into action. Like a shadowy Johnny Appleseed, she smuggles native plants across property lines, sabotages exotics, reroutes rainwater, and takes charge of the local wildlife. But conflict is in the forecast.
LOGLINE: Set in a tony east coast suburb, Invasive Species is a comic novel about a woman so troubled by a changing world that she sneaks into neighbors’ yards to climate-proof them, guerilla-style.
As you know because I wrote you earlier, I LOVE THIS. Love the title, love the premise, love the setting. It's similar in aim to the novel I'm working on now. I wish you all the best with this, I wouldn't change a thing!
GENRE: Nonfiction, personal development
TITLE: The In-Between Times: Twenty Weird and Wonderful Experiments to Break-Up with Do-It-All-ism & Fully Embrace the Lovely Life Hidden in the Cracks of Your Days
(yes this title is probably too long... haha!)
Project description:
Each chapter in the book is a description of 20 experiments I've done during the in-between times of my life (driving down the highway, at the grocery store, waiting for a staff meeting to get started, etc.) in an attempt to unhook from perfectionist, toxic-productivity mindsets, and uncover more delight, awe, love, ease and yesss! (my D.A.L.E.Y. 5) in the in-between times of my life.
Logline:
This is a book for moms of school-aged kids (or just women?) who are ready to unhook from all-or-nothing, toxic-productivity mindsets through a series of playful experiments that uncover the delight, awe, love, ease and yesss! available to all of us in the in-between times of life.
I love calls *against* productivity, especially these days. I actually like your title quite a lot! Though I think you can replace everything that comes after "embrace" and make it shorter, "Fully Embrace Giving a Little, Doing Less" "Fully Embrace Chaos" or something along those lines. And I like the structure of 20 exercises and the language of "in-between times." Sounds like a great project!
TITLE/GENRE: THE RELUCTANT WINE DETECTIVE (Mystery / Thriller)
DESCRIPTION: Eugenia Clairvin, an unassuming wine phenom, with a perfect olfactory memory, doesn't recognize her unique talent. She's overwhelmed by her mother's suicide, her father's illness, and the loss of the family vineyard. But things are looking up, fate has taken an unexpected turn and brought her a whirlwind romance and a new fiancé who is a wine researcher in France. When he vanishes and she suddenly receives a cryptic letter bearing an enigmatic scent from him, she goes to France, and with her fiancé's sister, discovers he disappeared with a rare wine that will change humanity forever. To unravel his fate and decipher the truth behind a deadly web of deceit, she must first recognize the truth about herself.
LOGLINE: An unassuming wine phenom with a perfect olfactory memory, searching for her missing fiancé, uncovers a miracle wine, a web of deadly deceit, and the truth about herself.
X MEETS Y: The Queen's Gambit and Lessons in Chemistry meet Dan Brown in the world of wine.
The XY formula is phenomenal and the logline is super solid! For the description, I get a little lost in how someone who is a wine "phenom" and whose family had a vineyard didn't have her talent recognized, or nourished? The description has a lot going on (normal, it's a novel!) but I must admit, there is so much going on, I'm not sure where the spotlight is in the paragraph. What's the most important thing, what is Eugenia's quest? To finally admit her talent? To find her fiancé? To save the family vineyard? To mourn her mother's death? To escape the mental illness that plagued her mother? With the volume turned up regarding what "the truth" is that she must recognize about herself, I think you'll have a stellar pitch!
Courtney, your analysis is spot on! Reading all your comments, I realize that I should be very clear about the 'truth about herself' (mental illness in her family) and the truth about her fiancé's disappearance (he faked a miracle wine, disappearing to make it credible, and ransoming it... never thinking Eugenia would uncover the truth and stop him). Really enjoying and benefiting from your substack and you sharing your experience and expertise. Thanks!
Hi Courtney - I hope it's not too late to participate, I see you're responding to folks now! I just subscribed because I've been avoiding this challenge - thanks for prompting me to do it, and thanks in advance for your feedback!
Title: INDELICATE
Genre: Literary fiction
Description: The Junction Hotel is already on shaky ground when it’s overcome with a heat wave so powerful it threatens business and causes monstrous scorpions to infest its prized pool. Pablo, the pool attendant, is tasked with removing them, but he’s a nature-loving vegan opposed to violence of any sort. When Pablo accidentally offends an influential guest, the fate of the hotel is put at stake. Meanwhile, a journalist is arriving any minute to interview one of the hotel’s residents, a reclusive artist grappling with his first taste of fame during a creative dry spell, and put the hotel under even more scrutiny. After the hotel owner is injured and an unexpected, unwelcome guest arrives, the residents must band together under the leadership of the long-time hotel housekeeper to save the hotel.
Logline: The residents of a West Texas hotel are shaken by an unprecedented heat wave and an unexpected visitor.
XY formula: Grand Budapest Hotel, but in West Texas.
I love this! The XY formula is grand. For the description, make sure you specific that this is in West Texas-- you say that in the logline but not the description. I'd mention what Pablo does to offend the influential guest. Otherwise I think this is marvelous-- I love me a behind the scenes PR crisis! You might want to give a think to whether there's not a more descriptive title you can query with-- something that specifically speaks to the hospitality industry or west Texas or -- better still-- both! Thanks for upgrading to join us here!
Thanks so much for your feedback! Excited to keep participating in these workshops
TITLE/GENRE: GROWING UP EVANGELICAL, CHINESE, AND DEPRESSED (memoir)
DESCRIPTION: The memoir tells the story of Jane, the daughter of Chinese immigrant and evangelical—almost fundamentalist—Christian parents, growing up in the 1980s and 90s in Orange County, California. She struggles with her father’s bipolar disorder as well as her own developing depression and anxiety. As Jane moves through romantic/sexual relationships, earning her PhD in English, and becoming a professor, she risks losing family and religion as she fights for her own independent identity and path.
LOGLINE: A Chinese American woman raised evangelical Christian wrestles with growing up with an immigrant father with bipolar disorder in order to pursue her own healing from depression and anxiety.
X MEETS Y: Educated meets The Collected Schizophrenias
Your XY formula is perfect. One thing for both the description and logline-- memoir is quite hard to get agents and editors for at this current moment, so you want to make it hyper clear that you have a plot. Is there some tweaking you can do to show a quest that's almost tangible beyond healing and finding peace and independence? Something with dire stakes-- for example, the narrator is gunning for a tenure track position but past trauma is coming back to haunt her and she's flubbing some of her interviews and/or is unable to publish (because: publish or perish.) I'm absolutely not trying to write your book for you or to suggest a false direction, but in your descriptive materials, you'll want to prove that you have a page turner to get past the red ropes in a difficult market.
Thank you, Courtney! I have had a sense that the plot/narrative arc of the memoir is not apparent, so your feedback resonates with that. Jane
thanks for your response! One thing I find helpful is to look at the descriptive materials of your comp titles. What's the plot there? What made you buy the book? what made you turn the pages?
Courtney, thank you. Yes, I do find it helpful to look at book descriptions on Amazon. It is interesting for me to think about books like The Collected Schizophrenias or Minor Feelings that maybe don't have a conventional plot or narrative arc? Wondering if this is a difference between a memoir vs. a nonfiction collection of essays? Anyways, your feedback made me rewrite the description below trying to bring out the plot more.
DESCRIPTION: At age 32, Jane is admitted to the psychiatric unit of a hospital after her severe depression makes her unable to teach her college class and work on her dissertation toward earning her PhD in American literature. As she leaves the psychiatric unit and spends two months in an intensive-outpatient therapy program, she learns from the other clients in the program and wrestles with the shame and stigma of growing up with a father who was hospitalized multiple times for bipolar disorder. She deals with two psychiatrists having opposing medication prescriptions for her mental illness, different prescriptions that can make the difference between her being a functional professor and spouse or having problems with daily functioning. Getting stabilized on her medications, albeit with bumps in the road, she earns tenure and prepares to have a baby at 40, given the long road to her academic career. While dealing with the challenges of being a mother with a mental health condition, she starts writing her memoir during a sabbatical shortly after receiving tenure. In writing her memoir, she gives expression and structure to past traumas.
This is much more evocative and suggests plot. When pitching to agents, I (personally, you don't have to take this advice!) would use " the search/need for tenure" as the quest-- that's the thing the reader could root for, the narrator getting tenure.
Maybe this for a revised logline? Not sure if it's too long though.
LOGLINE: A 32-year-old PhD student in American literature is hospitalized for severe depression that makes her unable to teach classes and work on her writing. Through her hospitalization and time in an intensive-outpatient program, she listens to other clients’ stories that help her cope with her own, including growing up with a father with bipolar disorder. Shortly after receiving tenure, while trying to balance motherhood and mental health, she begins working on a memoir that helps her express and give structure to past traumas.
A logline should be one sentence-- you should be able to say it out loud in like 3 seconds. That's why it's often referred to as an "elevator pitch"-- because you should be able to pitch it to someone in an elevator. You'll get there-- the description is a vast improvement! And yes-- descriptions for essay collections won't follow the same formula as a book length memoir. Thanks for sharing your revisions!
Thank you, Courtney!
TITLE/GENRE: MR. SCHEHERAZADE — romantic comedy (screenplay)
DESCRIPTION: Paul Falconer, a middle-aged novelist, has lost touch with his readership and the world around him. He misses the old publishing world, the old Manhattan, the old literary lions. When Paul learns that his long-time publisher might cancel his book deal, he feels almost relieved. But when Paul discovers that Mary, his editor and first reader — also, his ex-wife — is romantically serious with a mysterious someone, the author wants to win her back. And how better than to write something new? He will show Mary that he can still enchant her. But, as Paul gets underway, a minor character takes narrative control. Struggling to write his novel, Paul wonders who is creating whom?
LOGLINE: An out-of-touch novelist tries to win back his ex-wife with a new book, but a minor character has other ideas.
TAGLINE: Beneath every Pygmalion lies a Frankenstein.
X MEETS Y: “My Fair Lady” meets “Frankenstein” with “His Girl Friday” as the framing device. Or, because there will be a lot of tug-of-war with POV - “If Christopher Nolan and Nora Ephron had a love child, it might be this romantic comedy.”
This sounds juicy and exciting! A few questions: what kind of books did this man write that won him fame and renown? Is it his style of writing that has fallen out of fashion or is it him? And why is his publisher going to cancel his book deal-- poor pre orders maybe? Or does he do something to get himself cancelled? And finally, if his wife is far enough in the past to be an ex wife, it seems like a big leap that her dating someone new causes him to want her back. In theory (I'm just guessing) that separation has been in place for quite a while which would make feelings of jealousy less fresh. Maybe the mysterious someone is a rival writer? I love the idea of a minor character taking over-- so fun, plus it will allow you to build plot into a book that could otherwise suffer from interiority (because your main character is a writer, and writers have sedentary jobs ;) Keep it up-- it sounds great!
Thank you, Courtney! Don’t know if this has a bearing on your feedback, but this is a screenplay, not a novel. Book scenes are visualized, and I would like to play with perspective — are we in or out of the book — if only a few times, to reinforce the experience of reframing our perspective. Author wrote a series of detective novels that are falling out of fashion and he gets himself cancelled at a book convention. His ex-wife’s lover is his longtime publisher and best friend (so far). I am playing with the idea that at the end of the story, his ex-wife is actually writing a novel and he is a character within it. I know you don’t like secrets withheld, but I felt like this additional twist bogs down the description and logline? I truly appreciate your time.
I didn't miss that it was a screenplay, but even in the pitch documents for screenplays, motivations are fleshed out (or should be! as you rightly stated I'm big on giving details instead of withholding them.) I think that the theme of cancellation is so timely, it should be in the description, ditto for the type of novels he writes falling out of fashion. It gives him more humanity and roundness and helps understand his world, and thus, the book's.
Thank you, Courtney! Here is a more fleshed-out logline —
A disgraced crime writer wants to win back his readers, his reputation and most importantly, his ex-wife, whom he has never stopped loving, by writing something that proves he is more than the entitled jerk who got himself cancelled, but as his new book gets underway, a minor character loses her patience and takes over the narrative, while the recurring protagonist in the writer’s crime series, an old-school detective, is ready for a regime change as well.
This is much cleaner-- brava! I'd insert what he was cancelled for so we have a better idea, as readers, of how much of an uphill battle this is going to be. Otherwise this is a fantastic revision!
[Title/Genre] A LEAVE OF ABSENCE (Book Club/Upmarket Fiction)
[Description] Set in the glory days of 2013 Silicon Valley, A LEAVE OF ABSENCE follows an ambitious millennial woman named Maggie, a rising-star journalist. After her ultra-successful father jumps off the Golden Gate Bridge, Maggie and her mother are unexpectedly left penniless. She joins a promising early-stage startup in San Francisco, hoping for a quick path back to riches, and falls for its charismatic founder, spiraling her life into a wildly unexpected direction that forces her to reckon with both her sanity and the world she's always felt she was destined to inhabit.
[Logline] It’s like Fleishman is in Trouble if Rachel Fleishman had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and worked at a hot startup in 2013 Silicon Valley
[XYZ]: Fleishman is Trouble meets Uncanny Valley meets Sorrow and Bliss (although, note; the novel also deals with postpartum psychosis, so I’m not sure whether a novel of that ilk—like The Upstairs House or Nightbitch would be better here?)
This is super interesting-- I do think whenever "Silicon Valley" is mentioned it kind of takes all the oxygen from the proverbial room. It seems like to you, at least in the logline, that the main characters mental health struggles are the most important thing, but those troubles aren't actually mentioned in the description. A question I have is if the father was super successful, why were they left penniless? Did he have some kind of secret life, or just secrets? Is joining the start up against the values she was raised with? I think there is some work to be done to illustrate the life that Maggie was excited about having versus the life she has to "settle for" or adopt in order to...to what? Stay living where she lives? Support herself financially? Why is it so essential that she keep living at the level she was living at? I mean, I get it logistically, but for her, why is it important?